“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone” – Blaise Pascal.
If there is one thing that I really discovered about myself in the last 6 months, particularly in the last few weeks, is that the above famous words from a historical figure do not quite apply to me. Having lived alone in Singapore for almost five year, I knew I am not a person who always want to be out and about.
But… the few months have brought about monumental discoveries.
“To sit quietly in a room” – this is probably a metaphor. Translating into today’s words, I would think it probably equates to not doing a lot, or not doing anything at all, or to a certain extent, just self-entertained.
Are we able to do this for an extensive period of time?
I discovered that I could. As I reflect on this, I realised that it could possibly be because I have always done this from a very young age. For instance, I don’t think I have a proper toy until I was in my early teens. As such, I believe I have mastered the art of entertaining myself, or just sit quietly at one spot and just let time passes.
It is probably an escape when I was very young, from everything that is happening around me. Perhaps that was a good thing, as that didn’t allow bad influence affect me when I was young.
I sound pretty weird now, but I do believe not doing anything or just doing the exact same thing over and over again in these days and age is truly a disappearing art.